AdobeAdvertising Cloud (formerly Adobe Media Optimizer) is an ad management product and is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud. It delivers a rules-based bidding solution that improves the performance of search engine marketing campaigns and is integrated with Adobe Analytics.
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RavenTools
Score 7.6 out of 10
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Raven Tools from the Tennessee company of the same name is Internet or search engine marketing optimization software consisting of popular tools targeted at SEO specialists who need research automation. To that end it contains the familiar set of website research and auditing, competitor monitoring, rank tracking, and also content investigation to see that material on the site is keyword-rich yet topically relevant. Social media and backlink checking tools facilitate outreach and drive traffic…
I think it is good to keep in mind the type of business application you have in mind when selecting Media Optimizer for your company. For us, as an agency, it makes sense for us to utilize the reporting and paid search optimizing portions for our clients as we manage over 300+ clients PPC campaigns. With this tool it is possible to set up campaigns easily and as long as the parameters are set correctly within the portfolio, there is a great opportunity for the tool to do its job and use the simulation/modeling process to run and grow a paid search campaign with ease of human interaction.
If you are looking for a one-stop shop for MOST things related to digital marketing, RavenTools is a great solution. You will be able to monitor social media, Google tools, email campaigns, and much more from one spot. It really cuts down on time spent moving from account to account. If you are looking for clean and easy to read reports for clients, RavenTools is perfect for that as well. It provides tools and reports that can be used by internal and external teams alike.
RavenTools has teamed up with SEO services like Moz and Magestic SEO to provide detailed data about the SEO health of your own websites as well as how they compare to your competitors' websites. I can directly compare number of backlinks, page speed, domain authority, integration of Google Analytics, presence of robots.txt files, on-site social media engagement, and home page load time. This a great way to get an idea of how your site stacks up against others and what can be done to improve it.
RavenTools' automated reports are mostly great (I'll cover the negatives later). You can create reports with as much data as you would like and schedule them to arrive as often as you would like. I have SEO, social media, and site performance reports delivered to my team and me every Monday covering the last 10 days, and a broader quarterly report arrives in the inboxes of a few executives once a quarter.
RavenTools' graphs are often easier to read and decipher than graphs found in Google Analytics. Part of the reason is the graph height. Google Analytics graphs are fairly short, so it's difficult to see smaller variations in the data. Those variations are more pronounced within RavenTools using the data.
As with most Adobe products, it can be a little tedious to use and requires a bit of extra training and "googling" around to make sure you are getting things right. It has improved over time within the entire Adobe suite, and I anticipate that this will be true of this as well.
Adobe training and learning platforms can include a lot of technical terminology and jargon that makes it difficult for a novice to understand without feeling like they need a whole new education.
The data it gets from Webmaster Tools and Analytics is great and reporting on it is easy - however, when you're looking at the charts for keyword placement on screen the graphic can be hard to read and often I find myself just checking GWT and BWT separately for easier information if no report needs to be generated.
RavenTools comes with an iPhone app so you can check on your campaigns and clients when you're not at your desk, however, the app crashes quite a bit when you get to the Google Analytics portion of the screen.
As of this writing, we have just discontinued our use of Adobe Media Optimizer. Other vendors gave us a better rate, a better contract option, and the product is just better than what we had with Adobe at the time. We may revisit Adobe again at the future, but it seems like they have a lot of work to do to catch up with the leader in the space
A year ago or so, Raven abandoned many of their organic rank reporting tools in an attempt to favor some Adwords intelligence. The market rebelled, as did I; in our desperation to find an alternative to Raven, none could be found and a great majority of users didn't want/need Adwords data. Months later, Raven reverted. I'd renew with Raven not just because nothing else cuts it, but because they are both trying to innovate, and listening to customers.
It definitely takes some instruction to get to be able to use the system. One would struggle trying to get it to work without any previous experience with it. If you are famailiar with the interface it is actually quite fast and easy to maneuver around.
Certain areas, Social Media scheduling, could stand to undergo a complete overhaul. However, most of the RavenTools interface is easy to use. You will not have any issues getting up and running and should there be an issue, the customer service is really good. They also continue to preform updates that make the usability even better
They are super knowledgable and help in almost all situations, however sometimes I feel they put you on hold to find the answers themselves as they literally have said. "Can you hold a few minutes while I research that answer for you?" Most of the time they come back with a solution, other times they manually escalate it to someone else.
RavenTools has some of the best Customer Support I have ever received. They are quick to respond and will keep you posted on the progress of your issue. You truly feel as if you are getting customized service. No human is perfect and I have had one situation in which I had to reach out multiple times, but overall I fully trust and approve of their process
It was a step up from Marin in terms of UI. Very similar functionality to Marin. Compared to Kenshoo Search and Google Marketing Platform it was probably not as advanced but offered the benefit of integrating with other products in the Adobe stack like Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Campaign.
I don't have a lot of experience with other tools although we have had a lot of demos of other products. We have often found that by utilizing features in Raven that we didn't know about we could have the same functionality without using another reporting tool. This allows us to continue using one integrated reporting tool.
RavenTools has been invaluable in helping us improve ranking through website audits. The ease with which we can correct issues once they arise has resulted in approximately 35% increased productivity from our audit team.
It would be helpful if the reports were nice enough that they could be customer-facing. We have to put the data into our own reporting forms for customer presentation.
